The clown Richard Tarlton. From the Roxburghe
Ballads. University of Victoria Library.

Street musicians, from the bass violist to the player of the tabor
and pipe illustrated here, frequented markets and busy areas, much as street buskers do today.
There were many broadside ballads and songs published in the period, and
there were of course traditional folk songs*, drinking songs*, and dances.

In The Winter's Tale, Autolycus, in his role as pedlar,
sells several ballads* on sensational topics to the gullible
shepherds--who forthwith sing one of them. (Click here for an example* of a ballad.)

Footnotes

A song with staying power

A well-known example of a traditional folk song is
"Greensleeves," which Shakespeare mentions twice in The Merry Wives
of Windsor.

Musical drinking

Many tavern songs were "catches," or rounds, often with a bawdy
meaning hidden in the third or fourth part where it would be difficult to
hear. An example given here is by Thomas Ravenscroft, and was published
in 1611--"He That Will an Alehouse Keep."

Autolycus the balladeer

Clown: What hast here? Ballads?Mopsa: Pray now, buy
some. I love a ballad in print, a-life, for then we are sure they are
true.Autolycus: Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a
usurer's wife was brought to bed of [gave birth to] twenty money bags
at a burden, and how she longed to eat adders' heads and toads
carbonadoed [barbecued].Mopsa: Is it true, think
you?Autolycus: Very true, and but a month old. . . .
Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast
on Wednesday the fourscore [80th!] of April, forty thousand fathoms
[240,000 feet, 73,000 metres] above water, and sung this ballad
against the hard hearts of maids; it was thought she was a woman, and
was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one
that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.
(The Winter's Tale, 4.4.259-81)

Shakespeare was hardly exaggerating the contents of contemporary
ballads.

Sounds of the streets

God give you good morrow my master, past three o'clock and
a fair morning. New mussels, new lily white mussels. Hot codlings
[cooking apples], hot. New cockles, new great cockles. New great
sprats, new. New fresh herrings. New haddocks, new. Now thornbacks
new. Hot apple pies, hot. Hot pippin pies, hot. Fine pomegranates,
fine. Hot mutton pies hot. Ha' ye any old bellows or trays to mend?
Rosemary and bays, quick and gentle. Ripe chestnuts, ripe. Ripe
smallnuts, ripe. White cabbage, white young cabbage, white. White
turnips, white young turnips, white. . . parsnips. . . lettuce. . .
Buy any ink, will you buy any ink, very fine writing ink, will you
buy any ink? Ha' ye any rats or mice to kill? I ha' ripe peascods,
ripe. Oysters, oysters, oysters, threepence a peck at Bridewell dock,
new Wallfleet oysters. Oyez! If any man or woman can tell any tidings
of a grey mare, with a long mane and a short tail, she halts
[limps] down right before, and is stark lame behind, and was lost
this thirtieth day of February. He that can tell any tidings of her,
let him come to the Crier, and he shall have well for his hire. Ripe
damsons, ripe fine damsons. Hard garlic, hard. Will ye buy any aqua
vitae, mistress? I have ripe goose-berries, ripe. Buy a barrel of
Samphire. What is't ye lack? Fine wrought shirts or smocks. Perfumed
waistcoats, fine bone lace or edgings, sweet gloves, silk
garters, very fine silk garters, fine combs or glasses. Or a poking
stick with a silver handle. Old doublets, ha'ye any old doublets? Ha'
ye any corns on your feet or toes? Fine potatoes, fine. Will ye buy
any starch for a clear complexion, mistress? Poor naked bedlam, Tom's
a-cold, a small cut of thy bacon or a piece of thy sow's side, good
Bess. God Almighty bless thy wits. Quick [live], periwinckles,
quick, quick, quick. Buy a new almanac. Buy a fine washing ball. Buy
any small coal? Good gracious people, for the Lord's sake, pity the
poor women, we lie cold and comfortless night and day on the cold
boards in the dark dungeon in great misery. Hot oat cakes. Lanthorn
and candlelight, hang out maids for all night. And so we make an
end.